CHAPTER V.
New South Wales.
Survey of the Colony—Sydney and its Harbour—The Great West—The Blue Mountains—Their Grand Scenery—An Australian Show Place—The Fish River Caves—Dubbo to the Darling—The Great Pastures—The Northern Tableland—The Big Scrub Country—Tropical Vegetation.
Views in Sydney: Government House, the Cathedral, and Sydney Heads. | Government Buildings, Macquarie Street, Sydney. |
New South Wales is the mother colony of Australia, and though, after the gold discovery, she was for a time thrown into the shade by the prowess of her former dependency, Victoria, she is making rapid strides to recover; in fact, she may be said to have regained her old premier position. Her eastern boundary is the Pacific Ocean, which washes a coast-line of 800 miles, bold in its outline and studded with numerous harbours. Imaginary lines divide her from Victoria to the south, Queensland to the north, and South Australia to the west. The greatest length of New South Wales is 900 miles; its greatest breadth about 850 miles; mean breadth, 600 miles. The superficial area is 309,100 square miles. That is to say, the colony is as extensive as the German Empire and Italy combined, or as France and the United Kingdom. The million of population which the colony contains is thinly scattered about this vast territory, the country districts obtaining the less, because more than a third of the people are congregated at Sydney, the capital, and at Newcastle, the coal port adjacent to the metropolis. High mountain ranges are found in New South Wales, lofty table-land, and vast low-lying plains, with the result that great variety of climate is obtained. For instance, on a certain day in November, 1885, the newspapers state that between the Warrego and the Paroo, north of the Darling, one thousand out of five thousand sheep had dropped dead upon a rough day's journey, wasted by the hunger and drought, and killed by heat; that two out of a party of three travellers perished of thirst in the Lechlan back blocks, and the third alone, naked and half mad, reached a station to tell the tale; that on the lower reaches of Clarence and Richmond rivers travellers saw cattle in the last stages of starvation, dying in the mud of the river banks, while down upon the Shorehaven a roaring spate was heaving haystacks to the sea; that while enterprising tourists were chilled with ice and sleet upon Ben Lomond, and snow was flattening crops of wheat in the gullies above Tumat, Sydney, despite the coolness of the daily inflow of ocean water, was suffering under a heavy sweltering heat. And while variations like these are the exception and not the rule, yet all these varied experiences may be endured in the colony on one and the same day.
New South Wales was discovered and named by Captain Cook, who landed in Botany Bay, a few miles north of Port Jackson, on the 28th of April, 1770. A penal settlement was formed the following year, and four days after the arrival of the little fleet, a French expedition, under the ill-fated M. de la Pérouse, cast anchor in the bay. The officer in command, Captain Arthur Phillip, soon recognised that Botany Bay was in many respects unsuitable for a principal settlement; and having examined Port Jackson, and found it to be 'one of the finest harbours in the world,' he did not hesitate to substitute it as the position from which to commence Australian colonisation. On the 26th of January, 1788, the fleet and all the people were transferred to Port Jackson; a landing was made at the head of Sydney Cove (the Circular Quay), and the colony of New South Wales was formally declared to be founded. The first settlers in all numbered 1030, of whom 504 were male exiles and 192 female exiles. On the 7th of February Arthur Phillip, Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief of the new territory, established a regular form of government; and, in his address to the assembled colonists, expressed his conviction that the State, of which he had laid the foundation, would, ere many generations passed away, become the 'centre of the southern hemisphere—the brightest gem of the Southern Ocean.' The peculiar audience which he addressed did not share his enthusiasm, but the prediction has been abundantly realised. The convict stage is now forgotten as a dream. To-day New South Wales contains almost a third of the population of all the colonies, has an annual import and export trade of nearly £50,000,000, and raises annually £9,000,000 of revenue. The colony has already constructed 1727 miles of railway, and is constructing 416 miles, and Parliament has authorised the construction of 1282 miles, and there are 19,000 miles of telegraph wires open. The value of its annual export of wool is, in normal seasons, worth £10,000,000; its sheep number 35,000,000; its horses, 350,000; its horned cattle, 1,500,000; and its swine, 220,000. The land under crop is 1,000,000 acres; the annual out-put of coal is 3,000,000 tons, of which nearly two-thirds are exported. The mines of gold, silver, tin, copper, and manganese, are also very rich, and their export is great. The city of Sydney and its suburbs have a population of 270,000.
Statue of Captain Cook at Sydney.